By By Adam Daigle / The Natchez Democrat
April 30, 2002
NATCHEZ As hard as Jody Blount's fastball was, Cathedral breathed a sigh of relief when he returned to the mound.
To the Green Wave, the flame-throwing right-hander was easier to face than lefty Wes Henry. And even though they did not get a hit after he came back to pitch, they did get the go-ahead run in the bottom of the seventh for a dramatic 6-5 walk-off win to claim the best-of-three series over Union.
Now the Green Wave advances to South State to face district rival St. Aloysius, and the winner will go to the state championship series.
The Green Wave got the lead off Blount but did not get a hit after he came back with no outs in the sixth inning. But he walked Rodney Daggett to lead off the seventh, and Daggett reached second on a passed ball.
Bert Goldman's groundout got Daggett to third, and Daggett scored on a wild pitch to win it.
The ending was a sour one for the Yellow Jackets and Blount, who suffered a similar loss in Game 1 of the series. Cathedral won that game in its last at-bat when Clay Hammons walked with the bases loaded to break a 2-2 tie.
But this time the Yellow Jackets continued to fight back after being down before bouncing back to take the lead heading into the bottom of the sixth.
The Yellow Jackets went up in the sixth inning off Cathedral left-hander Chris Norris to lead 4-3. Eric Graham led off with a double and went to third on an error. Brooks Vance's flyout to center scored Graham to give the Yellow Jackets their first lead of the game.
That came on the heels of tying up the game in the fifth inning when Jacob Casey reached on an error and scored on a Blount single.
The Green Wave got two in the bottom of the sixth to take back the lead. Jeremy Davis led off with a single and scored on Wyler Murray's triple. Murray then scored on a wild pitch.
The Green Wave had a chance early to break the game open against Blount as they took a 2-0 lead in the first and scored one in the second when a bases-loaded walk to Norris plated Daggett.
But Cathedral left the bases loaded in the second, runners at second and third in the third and the bases loaded in the fourth.
We let that game get away from us in the first two innings," Beesley said. "We left too many runners on. You have to give them credit. They're fundamentally coached and executed it. It seemed like every time we had a chance to break the game open they made a defensive play and took it away from us."
Union scored a run in the first inning when Sean Ferrell singled in Zach Robinson and one in the third when Eric Graham singled in Jacob Casey.